


the harmony of our sweet rapture

by empirium



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Durincest, M/M, Silly Boys, Slow Build, dwarves in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 08:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/937749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empirium/pseuds/empirium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there are suitors, sweets, distracting Kili, and lots of chores to be done, though not necessarily in that order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the harmony of our sweet rapture

“Aren’t we the lazy one today,” Fili commented as he strode up next to the prone body of his brother lying in the glen. It was a warm day out, the first of many spring days to come. The sun was still perched in the sky, though in another several hours or so, it would begin to grace the top of the mountains with its touch and sink below, dragging the light with it as it goes.

Kili opened one eye to peek up at Fili and then shut it again with a smug smile on his face. “I’ve finished all my chores. I deserve a break.”

Fili snorted at that. Kili skipped off half-way through cleaning the kitchen and Fili had to finish the chore for him. He should be irritated, really, but after the trek out past the city gates, his mood was much better and his heart lighter. He doesn’t mind picking up Kili’s slack on the occasion.

“You left before finishing,” Fili said. He sat down on the grass next to Kili. “Guess who cleaned up after you.”

Kili didn’t even bother with opening his eyes as he grinned. “You love me,” he said.

Fili huffed a breath of laughter as he picked the little flowery weeds within reach. He plucked them, one by one, by their stems. “Don’t be presumptuous, brother. I cleaned up for Mother, not for your sake.”

“You did it for me, so I wouldn’t get in trouble,” Kili insisted, the silly grin still plastered on his face.

“For Mother and for a clean kitchen,” Fili replied, sticking the flowers into Kili’s hair.

“I think you’re denying it too—what are you doing?”

Kili opened his eyes when Fili tucked a flower behind his ear. Kili grabbed wildly at the thing perched there and when he discovered what it was, he laughed, full-bellied and exuberant.

“I am not a girl,” he said, spinning the flower between his fingers.

“Of course,” Fili replied and started to put grass in Kili’s hair instead.

Kili squawked in indignation and they passed the rest of the afternoon laughing and throwing grass and dirt at one another and it never occurred to Fili that it was time to go home until Mother came to fetch them.

==

“You’re getting older,” Kili said in the darkness of their shared room.

Fili chuckled. “I’m not that old,” he replied.

There was a soft giggle and then momentary silence.

From across the room, he heard the shifting of blankets and then the soft patter of feet on the cold, stone floor. Fingers poked him in the arm and belly until he moved over, making room in his already tiny bed.

Kili crawled in, completely unabashed.

“You’re turning fifty tomorrow,” Kili said, his voice sounding entirely too close for comfort. Fili could feel his brother’s breath on his skin, the warmth Kili’s body emanated. “How is that not old?”

“You are not that far behind me,” Fili warned, reaching out to pinch Kili’s arm. The answering giggle proved that he was unsuccessful. “Aren’t you a little too old to be climbing into bed with me? You’re not exactly tiny anymore either.”

Instead of deterring him, it just caused Kili to move closer. “Never,” he said, practically smothering Fili. “Besides, you hate sleeping alone.” There was a pointy finger jabbing at Fili’s belly again and he yelped in surprise, knee jerking in automatic reaction. Kili took the chance to entwine their legs together, completely trapping Fili to the bed.

Fili wondered if Kili could hear the rapid thudding of his heart in his chest. It almost felt like his heart was about to explode and he was immensely glad for the darkness; he had no doubt that his face was turning redder than a tomato. He took in a deep breath, pretending it was part annoyance and exasperation, though it was anything but.

“Brat,” Fili said, slinging an arm over Kili’s back. Kili took the opportunity to tuck his head under Fili’s chin, humming happily under his breath.

“You love me,” Kili said with extreme confidence and Fili yanked on Kili’s hair. “Ow! You can’t lie to me, I know.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Fili replied and yanked on Kili’s hair again because he could.

“Ow!”

==

Kili was very good with a bow and arrow, though Fili wasn’t a terrible shot either. But unlike Kili, he grew a beard and a very fine mustache, and as such, he couldn’t use the bow without fear of ripping out his hair. Instead of the bow, Fili took up throwing knives. They were just as deadly as a bow and adequate enough for short range projectiles.

He was in the middle of sharpening them with borrowed tools from Thorin’s forge in the kitchen when Kili came storming in, eyes glassy and bright. Fili knew he was holding in the tears by sheer force of will.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, abandoning his task to attend to his brother.

Kili pulled out a chair and sat down in it heavily. He didn’t look up at Fili, but stared intently at the scratched surface of the wooden table like it had the answers he was looking for. Fili waited patiently until Kili was ready to speak, though he did his best to hold back the torrent of worry that was ready to spill out.

“I broke it.”

Fili felt momentarily confused. What did Kili break?

Instead, he found himself asking: “Did you break it on purpose?”

Kili shook his head, blinking furiously. “No. It just…I was using it and then…I don’t understand! I’ve always taken good care of it! Why did it snap?!”

Ah, his bow, Fili thought.

“You’ve had it for a long while,” Fili said gently. “Perhaps it’s fate telling you to get a new bow.”

A fat blob of a tear rolled down Kili’s cheek. “No!” he just about shrieked. “No! I can’t just get a new one!” The first tear was like the signaling of a dam breaking; Kili started to cry in earnest and Fili was torn between laughter and concern. He opted for both and pulled Kili in for a hug with a small chuckle.

“Oh, Kili,” he said, unable to keep the smile from his face. He didn’t know why Kili was in such a distraught state; a bow was easily replaceable. “There’s no need to cry. I’ll come with you to get a new one commissioned tomorrow, alright?”

“But it won’t be the same!” Kili howled into Fili’s chest in between hiccupping cries. “It—it’s the one you gave me. It was—it was my favorite. And now it’s broken!”

At this admission, Fili really did laugh. A niggling sense of warmth spread from his chest to the tip of his toes, unrelenting in the way it made Fili’s mouth curve upwards.

“What’s so funny?” Kili was glaring at him with red-rimmed eyes and all Fili could think was how fond he was of Kili. He pressed an impromptu kiss to the top of Kili’s head and that managed to still and quiet his brother for the moment.

“I gave you that bow when were still children,” Fili said. “It was no wonder it broke! You’ve more than outgrown it now. Stop crying like a babe. I’ve already promised I’d go with you to commission a new one tomorrow.” He cupped Kili’s face and gently wiped away the tears with his thumbs. “We’ll go first thing in the morning.”

Kili nodded sullenly and Fili couldn’t stop another chuckle from bubbling forth. He pressed another indulgent kiss to Kili’s temple and stepped back to allow his brother some dignity.

“Fili-kisses,” he heard Kili mutter.

He raised an eyebrow at that.

“They’re a bit like Mother-kisses,” Kili clarified.

“I’ll tell Mother you want her to hug and kiss you when she gets home,” Fili said as he went back to his task of sharpening his knives. He thought he caught Kili making a face, but when he looked up, Kili had already disappeared from the kitchen.

==

It was really no surprise that when Kili turned of age that he was bombarded with suitors left and right. Fili had his fair share of admirers, but not to the same extent that Kili was experiencing.

Out of the two of them, it was Kili who had the stronger Durin features. The classic dark hair and strong jawline, not to mention the dark eyes and stubborn attitude; those were all things the Durin line was known for. Fili, on the other hand, was more placid when compared with others of his family, though by no means was he not stubborn. He was just less pigheaded than the rest of them. His blond hair and dimples also weren’t quite common features of his ancestral bloodline.

When Fili was younger, there had been a rumor amongst the dwarven children that he was adopted. He couldn’t remember his father, already long passed by this point in time, and he honestly believed he wasn’t a true son of Durin. It was mostly why he kept to himself and played solely with Kili, who had always accepted him without question.

He knew it was a silly rumor now, one that children made up because they had no explanation as to why he looked so differently from his family, but Kili’s flurry of suitors brought back the vicious memories of childhood.

“How’s my handsome stallion doing today?” Mother asked when Kili came barreling into the kitchen where she was testing new concoctions.

There had been an unfortunate—but hilarious—incident in which someone referred to Kili as a stallion within Mother’s earshot and now, Fili believed Kili would never live it down. It was her new favorite pet name for Kili. It went without saying that Kili hated it.

“Please,” Kili pleaded with a wince. He was looking quite harried and Fili gave Kili a hopeless shrug; he couldn’t censor what Mother wanted to say. No one told Mother what to say or do, not even Uncle or Mister Dwalin, as scary as he was.

Mother laughed and shooed Kili away from the kitchen. “Go get cleaned up. You’re filthy and getting dirt on my sweets.” 

Nevertheless, she gave him a wet, smacking kiss on his cheek and shoved her new tartish-lemon candy into Kili’s mouth. Fili almost laughed at the sour expression Kili made, though it hadn’t been quite that different from his own just half an hour ago. 

“A bit too sour, Mother,” Kili said and charged out of the kitchen.

Fili followed Kili to their shared room—too cramped now for the both of them, but they didn’t feel a need or want for their own space. Mother didn’t have the spare funds to move them into a bigger home either, but both of them never had any complaints. Fili liked having time with his brother.

“Ugh!” Kili snarled when he noticed Fili was there willing to lend a friendly ear. “That silly girl won’t leave me alone! She’s taken to calling me her morning sparrow now! I think she’s working through a list of all the most ridiculous animals she can think of!”

Fili smiled. He couldn’t remember the girl’s name, but he knew who it was Kili was talking about. It was the ‘handsome stallion’ girl.

“She’s fond of you.”

“She’s too persistent.”

“She’s a dwarf. We’re a stubborn sort.”

Kili glared at him and Fili raised two hands upwards in a universal motion of defeat.

“I wish there was a way to get them to stop!” Kili exclaimed.

Fili raised an eyebrow at that. He had a simple solution; it was the one he used to stop any and all suitors in their tracks and the reason he hardly had to deal with any these days.

As if sensing Fili had advice on the tip of his tongue, Kili turned to him pleadingly. “How did you make them stop?”

“I hardly had the same problems as you,” Fili replied, “just a few lasses, but I told them my heart belonged to another.”

Kili’s eyes widened and his mouth suddenly went slack.

Fili tapped him on the skull lightly. “Still in there?”

Kili blinked and spluttered; “You—you what?”

“It worked quite well,” Fili pressed on. “Well, there are always going to be a few that are persistent, but it helps to deter most declarations of undying love.”

Fili watched as Kili blinked again, rapidly, and as if his legs gave out from under him, took a heavy seat on his bed. He was still looking shell-shocked and it was a bit worrying. 

“It’s alright, brother,” Fili said, keeping his tone light. “You never were the smarter one of us.”

“I’m not stupid,” Kili growled, but there was no heat behind the words. He was looking at Fili warily, like there was something to be afraid of. “Did you—when you said that—did you mean it?”

Fili thought back to the last time he had been approached by a dwarven lass—Mir—who had been interested in him. It was three years ago and she had been sweet and patient and by all accounts, Fili should have felt a spark of something for her besides the kindle of friendship. He couldn’t, not even when she brought him lunch on the occasion he worked at the forge and not even when they went to the bar and tried to drink each other under the table. He had taken her aside and said, very carefully: “I’m in love with someone else.”

They hadn’t talked since then, but he remembered Mir’s unhappy smile and the tears that rolled down her cheeks when he broke her heart.

“Do they love you back?” she asked.

Fili shook his head. “Not in the same way I love them.”

She cried even harder then and when she finally calmed down, she said to him in a very quiet voice: “The two of us; fools in love.”

Fili agreed, then. He still thought about those words, years later.

“It’s best to be truthful,” Fili advised. “It would be shameful to answer heartfelt feelings with lies.”

Kili moved his stare to the wall. “Oh,” he said. “Alright.”

Fili frowned and moved to stand next to his brother. There was something strange going through Kili’s head, he knew that much. He laid a hand on Kili’s shoulder worriedly.

“Kili?”

Kili shook his head. “I’m fine.” He looked back up at Fili and smiled, big and wide. “Thank you. You’re the best brother ever.” He grabbed Fili around the middle, drawing him into a tight hug. From the strange angle that Fili was pulled into the embrace, he couldn’t see Kili’s face; all he could see was the top of Kili’s head and the messy mop of hair that grew from it.

He wrapped his arms around Kili in silence and rubbed a comforting hand over Kili’s back, patiently waiting for the tiny tremors to subside.

When Kili pulled away suddenly, declaring loudly something about taste-testing for Mother, he bolted out of the room before Fili could say anything.

Fili stared down at his shirt and at the wet spot on it, wondering if he should change.

==

They had a strange time between them in the time dealing with Kili’s suitors. He started to interact with them more, though he never chose any of them to be his intended. He broke many hearts that way and Fili couldn’t even begin to count the times Mother lectured his ears off about unfaithfulness and leading the poor lasses on. Fili didn’t care much about the girls or whoever it was that Kili was humoring, but there had been an unmistakable edge in the air when they would return to their shared room at night to sleep. Maybe it was because Fili hardly saw him anymore.

It made him very sad to think they were growing apart.

He confessed as much to Mother one night when Kili was late coming home and they’ve both decided to wait up for him. She only clucked her tongue back at him.

“Kili’s going through a mood right now,” she said mysteriously. “It’s something we’ve all learned how to live with.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

Even though he wasn’t a child anymore, even though he could no longer crawl into her lap, she still pulled him in for a loud, messy kiss on his cheek.

“Mother!” Fili sputtered, suddenly embarrassed even though it was just the two of them sitting in front of the fire talking.

“You mustn’t blame him. He’s lost right now,” she said with a tired sigh.

Fili watched her, how the fire seemed to give her youthful face deep worry lines. The hair, which was previously as dark as ebony, had begun to sprinkle silver throughout. She looked old now, and tired. She worked hard every day at the confectionery making sweets and he could see that the work was exhausting her. He wished he could help, but the last time he set foot in her shop, he made more of a mess rather than do any good. He had thought working with Thorin at the forge would have made it easy to work at her confectionery, but it was not true in the slightest. Making sweets required a different set of talent and skills.

He took her hand and squeezed it gently.

“How do you know?” he asked.

She stared into the fire, eyes far away, and when she spoke it was quiet and subdued. “Kili was very much alike to Frerin when he was alive. There were days when I would think Mahal has given him back to us. They would laugh the same, Fili.” She closed her eyes and inhaled slowly. “When Frerin found the girl of his dreams and had his heart broken by her, he went on a rampage through Erebor to fill the hole in his heart. I think Kili is doing the same.”

Fili stayed silent and continued to hold her hand.

“Tell me more about him,” he said. “Uncle never says anything and you rarely mention him.”

Mother opened her eyes and gave him a soft, wan smile. “Perhaps another time,” she said.

“Alright,” he decided not to push. “Mother, why don’t you go to bed? I can wait up for Kili on my own.”

She shot him a critical look, sighed, and then said, “Very well. I’ll retire for now. Good night, Fili.”

“Good night.”

She left, leaving Fili alone to his thoughts. He didn’t do much thinking in the end, it being late and all, and he found himself having drifted off. He woke with a start when he heard the front door shut.

The fire had all but died; the weak predawn light streaming in through the cracks between the window curtains was all he had to see Kili by. Kili looked back at him owlishly, as if he didn’t expect anyone to be waiting up for him.

“You’re late,” Fili croaked. “Or early. Whichever you prefer.”

Kili winced. “Why are you out here?”

“Mother and I were waiting for you,” Fili said, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. He stood up and stretched, his joints popping and cracking as he did so.

Kili didn’t look like he stayed out all night at a tavern; he, like everyone else that Fili knew—minus Uncle—was a loud and happy drunk. He didn’t stink either, not from drinking all night, but there was a lighter, dewy scent clinging to him. Fili stared intently into the hazy light, discerning how wild Kili’s hair seemed to look.

“Is that grass in your hair?” he asked, astounded. “What were you doing? Rolling in the grass all night?”

Kili’s hand snapped to his hair, brushing out the errant blades of grass. “No,” he mumbled petulantly. “I wasn’t rolling.”

Fili sighed.

“Well, it doesn’t matter now,” Fili said. “Mother’s worried about you.”

“I didn’t ask her to be,” Kili retorted.

Fili sighed, again. Mother was sleeping after all, and he would hate to wake her up before her usual hours by arguing with Kili, but he hated even more the strangeness that’s developed between them. Even now, Kili was unfriendly towards him.

“Come,” he said after counting to three in his head. He gently took hold Kili’s wrist and led him to their shared room. It was dark, but they both remembered the shape and lay of their home and avoided making any loud sounds in fear of waking Mother. Fili shut the door with a nearly silent thump behind them.

Kili had a sullen look about him, though he was glancing every now and then up at Fili. Fili ignored him for the moment and went straight to find Kili's bedclothes; when he found them, he handed them to Kili, who took them with the petulance of a rebellious stripling. 

“What?” Kili croaked. “I thought you were angry with me.”

“No,” Fili replied. “I’m not angry with you.” He smiled, though whether it could be discerned through the darkness or not, he didn’t know. Nonetheless, Kili started to change, albeit slowly, like he was wary and expecting an attack at any moment. Fili shook his head and sat down on Kili’s bed, wondering what was going through his little brother’s mind. 

“Why are you sitting on my bed?”

“You can come sit on it too.”

“That wasn’t—” Kili sighed and took a seat next to Fili.

Sitting next to him, just mere inches away from each other, Fili felt the strange gulf between them widen again as Kili mulled in silence. It was bizarre. Silences had never been uncomfortable between them before. 

“Kili,” he said, unable to stand the quietness. “Will you tell me what’s wrong?”

Next to him, Kili fidgeted. Fili knew him too well; Kili couldn’t get away with lying to him. He tapped his brother on the knee and raised an eyebrow in admonishment. Kili took the hint.

“I really, really don’t like anybody that’s trying to…romance me,” Kili said, his words slurring together in his almost-mumble, but Fili heard him clear through the still, quiet darkness. “I don’t want any of them. I don’t even like any of them! But it feels as if I don’t have a choice in the matter.” He paused for a moment before continuing tentatively, voice thick with emotion. “There’s one…that I had thought—we were the best. I thought it was going to be us until the end, but. It wasn’t meant to be. Their heart belongs to another.”

Fili wondered if it was inappropriate to bring up the conversation he had with Mother just hours earlier. She had hit the proverbial nail right on the head with Kili.

He brought his arms around Kili, bringing him in close for a tight embrace. He did his best to soothe away the tremors and if Kili cried, he made no note of it. There was nothing in the world that made Fili feel more like a tit than an upset Kili; it made everything seem wrong, somehow. Kili was meant to be smiling and laughing and happy.

Fili laid them down on Kili’s bed, now much too small for both of them to fit into comfortably, but Kili didn’t complain. Instead, he tucked himself around Fili like he never wanted Fili to leave.

Fili stroked the dark hair that fanned out over his arm and pressed a comforting kiss to the top of Kili’s head.

“Don’t lose hope,” he said. “Mahal knows I haven’t.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been sitting and collecting dust on my hard drive for ages. It was time to let it see the light of day, I suppose! The title is from Paloma Faith's Play On.


End file.
